Thief (32 page)

He grabbed one of the bamboo roof supports for stability. The ceiling was low, and he had to bend over to walk. When he reached the triangular entrance, he beheld a scene that he would remember in detail the rest of his life.

Monarch looked out into a sun-flooded box canyon, with tiger-striped and black cliff walls that rose hundreds of feet to dense groves of towering trees roped in vines. Similar to the one he'd seen the day before, a waterfall plunged from a V-shaped notch in the top of the far cliff, a shimmering ribbon of water that disappeared into low trees.

Nearer to the thief, the rain forest had been cut down in strips twenty feet wide. The lanes radiated like spokes from a clearing and a settlement of seven long houses arrayed in a loose semicircle around a large fire pit. Above the pit some fifty feet, the cliff turned under and protected the settlement from the sun and the rain. The ceiling of it was scorched from what looked like centuries of fire.

Santos sat on one of the logs around the pit and beneath the overhang speaking with Kiki, and two older, but very fit-looking Indian men painted like Getok. An older woman with a striking face and long, braided, steel-gray hair listened.

There were perhaps ten other people in the clearing, some of whom looked unmistakably indigenous, and others who looked almost Mediterranean. All of them except the children wore woven brown skirts similar to Getok's. Two women were using a carved log as a giant pestle to pound manioc root in a wooden mortar about two feet tall, the source of the thumping noise that had awoken him.

Three middle-aged men were using bunches of thatch to sweep leaves out from around the logs. The ground beneath the logs and indeed everywhere under the overhang was pale white crushed limestone. Beyond the protection of the cliff, however, the soil was fertile and dark. Children were playing some kind of game in those cleared lanes that ran out into the rain forest.

Santos caught sight of Monarch and called, “You're the third one up. How's your head?”

“Fine now,” he called back, and he realized that life had stopped in the settlement. All eyes were on him as he climbed down the bamboo ladder with Getok following.

The children had stopped their play, and now ran toward him, gaping in wonder. Down on the ground, the thief realized why they were all so interested in him. He was by far the tallest person there. Getok couldn't have been more than five-five. Both of the fit men talking with Santos stood up, and they were even shorter. One of them stared at Monarch in awe.

But the other, who had his hair shaved up the sides like a Mohawk, turned cold. With his spear held before him, and the sharp stone head aimed at the thief, he shouted, “
Ketunga!
”

Then he took a step back and shook the spear, and said it again, louder and more insistent: “
Ketunga!
”

The older woman, meanwhile, stood her ground, her eyes flashing angrily, as she began to mumble in a low, frantic voice that seemed to disturb the other Indians, especially the three men who dropped their brooms and picked up their spears.

Kiki and Santos immediately started making calming gestures and speaking to them soothingly in their language. The other fit guy was yelling at the men with the spears, telling them to back off. The trio did, but Mohawk and the old woman still looked spitting mad. They began to argue and point accusingly at Kiki and Santos.

“You mind telling me what's going on?” Monarch yelled, rendering the Indians mute and wide-eyed.

Santos looked at him with some relief, bowed toward the fit man, and said, “This is Naspec. He's Kiki's father and as close as the Ayafal come to having a chief. The other one with the shaved sidewalls is Augus, a tribal leader. The old woman is Fal-até. She is the Ayafal's most powerful shaman.”

“Back up, what's Ayafal mean?”

“The Children of the Moon,” she said. “It's what they call themselves. And this whole place they call Tasen-Fal, the Canyon of the Moon.”

“I gather the shaman and old Gus are not happy campers?”

“They hate that we are here at all,” the scientist confirmed. “Fal-até says that we, and especially you, will mean the destruction of the Children and the Canyon of the Moon.”

“Me?”

“That's what she said.”

“And Old Gus?”

“He's intimidated, I think. Augus and the chief told us
we
could return, but to bring no one else, and now they're pissed at me and at Kiki for bringing you.”

“Did you tell them I was along to keep you all safe?”

“Sort of,” she said. “At least in their terms.”

“Translation?”

“I told them there were demons that meant to harm us out in the jungle, and that you are a famous demon slayer,” she said. “Which is what Augus was yelling at you.
Ketunga
means demon-killer in Ayafal.”

“Great,” Monarch said. “So the shaman sees me as some kind of Shiva, destroyer of worlds, and Old Gus thinks I am Ketunga, spirit warrior in a fantasy novel.”

Santos fought against a smile, said, “That about sums it up.”

“Where's my gun? My pack?”

“As far as I can tell, and for reasons I can't explain, they left the gun where we were camped. The packs are all over there.”

“How did we get in here?”

“I don't know exactly,” she said. “They keep the way in and out a tight secret. I imagine, however, that we were carried here.”

“Tell Fal-até and old Gus I'm not going to destroy anything,” he said. “And tell Naspec that I sense no demons here to slay, and give him my real name.”

Santos hesitated and then spoke to them in their language, which had clicking noises deep in their throats similar to native tongues in southern Africa. When she was done, the chief almost smiled, nodded, and said, “Rawwbin.”

“Robin,” Getok corrected, and Monarch looked over his shoulder to find the young man standing there with that amused expression on his face.

“Robin,” Naspec said, then touched his forehead, nose, lips, and chest.

“He welcomes you to his mind, his senses, and his heart,” Santos said.

Monarch noticed that the shaman and the other tribal leader did not extend the gestures, but he bowed, and then repeated the movements to the chief.

Naspec grinned and then laughed, and all the other Ayafalians began to laugh with him. Except for old Gus and the shaman woman. Fal-até's lips squirmed like worms after a heavy rain, and she glared at Monarch as if she alone had a clear view of the dark side of his soul.

 

44

OVER THE COURSE OF
the next hour, the other members of the scientific expeditions roused from their stupor. Tribal members brought them water and boiled yams and manioc mixed in with a fruit like papaya. It was delicious and Monarch found the meal as satisfying and refreshing as the water.

All the while, Santos tried explaining to the chief and the skeptical shaman about the research she wanted to conduct. She said she believed the Ayafalians when they claimed to be very old, but wanted to verify their ages, and take some samples of their blood and tissue.

Fal-até got incensed at one point, and, as Santos translated it, said, “We know exactly how old everyone is here. I've told you that.”

“Many times. But you won't tell me how you know.”

The shaman looked at the scientist as if she were an idiot, hesitated, and replied testily, “The Moon God tells us of course.”

“You said that the last time I was here, too,” the scientist countered. “But is there a way you can
prove
everyone's ages?”

That had set off an argument between the chief, Augus, and the shaman woman that even Santos couldn't follow. But when they settled down, Fal-até crossed her arms, raised her chin, and said, “We'll show you how we know.”

The scientist looked shocked, but quickly agreed. Then she looked to Rousseau, Carson, and their assistants, said, “Get cameras. Bring sample kits.”

They all scrambled for their backpacks, and within minutes set off on a march away from the settlement, with the shaman woman leading and the chief right behind her. A sullen Augus followed. Monarch and Getok brought up the rear, which allowed the thief to see how the green and tan paint on the men's bodies seemed to make them almost invisible whenever they crossed through areas of sun-dappled vegetation. Even in the wide open, with plants at chest height or below, they seemed to blend right in.

They walked down one of the lanes cut through the jungle. Monarch noticed that they had been cleared by fire, and that not all trees had been taken. Every tree still standing in the lanes bore some kind of fruit or nut. Somehow the Ayafal knew that freeing up the trees would increase their yield.

Twice they passed gardens in the lane. The first two indigenous-looking women working the garden with Stone Age hoes took one look at Monarch and the scientists, shrieked and went down on their knees, trembling in terror. Kiki and her father went forward and calmed them, but even so, as they passed, the women looked at them like they were from another planet.

The second two women, however, had more Mediterranean features, and they shyly stopped their work when approached, giggling, gazing up at the outsiders with fierce interest, as if they were figments of their memories come to life. Santos showed Monarch how the Ayafal used a network of split bamboo logs to bring water to their gardens from the stream. It was primitive, and yet remarkably sophisticated.

They left the cleared lane and walked a well-worn path into dense foliage. The wall of plants on either side of the path went up twenty feet or more. It was the home of turquoise parrots that squawked and swirled overhead, and emerald green hummingbirds that flitted about scarlet flowers that bloomed on vines up and down the walls.

“Anyone know what that flower is?” the thief asked.

“No,” said Rousseau, the botanist. “It's just one of the undiscovered plants here.”

“And birds,” Carson said. “We took a picture of one of these parrots last time, compared them when we got back to Rio and found no known match.”

“It's true,” Santos said, nodding over her shoulder to Monarch.

The thief's attention, however, was already beyond Santos to where the jungle opened up into a large rectangular area cleared of vegetation, except short, soft grass that felt spongy underfoot. Entering the clearing, his eye was drawn to the frothy waterfall, which cast wispy rainbows as it poured off the cliff. It was much bigger than he'd thought, a solid twenty feet across and shaped like a skirt where it cascaded into a large, deep pool of crystal clear water.

“They call it Fal-ané,” Santos said. “It means moon water.”

“Fal-ané,” Naspec said, and smiled “Ayy.” He smiled.

Monarch noticed the other scientists had a kind of contented expression on their faces as they nodded and said, “Ayy.”

Santos must have seen the thief's puzzlement, because she said, “The Ayafalians have a big celebration here every full moon. We were part of it.”

“It's beautifully crazy,” said Graciella.

“I think the plants they use during the celebration are the cause of their longevity,” her boyfriend said.

“Ridiculous,” said Carson. “It's the water.”

Monarch put a hand to his brow, looked up the face of the waterfall, said, “Where's the source of the water?”

Carson gestured up toward the cliff rim and the trees, said, “We assume it's up there somewhere in that notch. At least that's where I'm going to look if I ever get the chance.”

“Haven't the Ayafal been up there?”

“They say there's no way up,” Santos said. “And believe me, they've looked. They think the forest on top is haunted by the spirits of their ancestors.”

The thief trailed his hand in the pool and found the water that perfect temperature. Then he realized the air there felt cooler than it should have been.

He asked Santos about it.

She said, “It's the caves. There are dozens of them at the backs of the overhangs. The walls of the cliffs are riddled with passages. Cold air comes up out of them, regulates the temperature. At least that's our theory.”

Monarch made to move away from the pool when he noticed something flash out of the waterfall and settle out deep in the pool, glinting as it sank. The chief, the shaman, and the tribal elder were leaving, crossing to the other side of the clearing with Santos and her associates close behind. Only Les Cailles and Graciella lingered, watching him.

“Did you see that?” the thief asked.

Rousseau's assistant hesitated. “See what?”

“Something brilliant, like a rock or something came down the waterfall, and it sank in there,” Monarch said.

“Then there it stays,” Graciella said. “You can drink from the pool, but you can't bathe or even wade. The Ayafal forbid it.”

Les Cailles nodded, said, “They somehow know that swimming in the water could pollute it, make them sick. So they don't.”

Monarch took one last look at the pool, and followed them and the shaman woman back into the forest. Within four hundred yards they again reached the overhang, which seemed to run the entire perimeter of the canyon. Fal-até led them deep beneath the overhang to where the back wall curved into the floor and appeared much lighter in color going left than it did right.

It wasn't until Monarch was close that he realized the lighter color on one side of the wall wasn't the result of mineral seepage, but hundreds upon thousands of two-inch by two-inch white cave paintings, all exact replicas of each other, showing the four quarter phases of the moon, repeated over, and over, and over again.

Going left, the cave paintings were stacked ten feet up the curve of the wall and onto the ceiling, and stretched as far as Monarch could see.

The shaman woman pointed to the only three paintings that weren't a replication of a lunar phase. In faded colors one painting showed what appeared to be a comet. Beside it was a depiction of an explosion with red, orange, and yellow flames. The third cave painting showed the sun and the full moon over a waterfall. At the bottom, stick figures gathered around a bonfire, which was depicted in a henna color.